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excel chart axis

goworm edited this page Jun 26, 2026 · 1 revision

Excel: Chart Axis

Post-creation tuning of an existing chart's axes (category, value, secondary value, series), addressed by role.

Path: /{SheetName}/chart[N]/axis[@role=ROLE]

Where ROLE is one of category, value, value2, series.

Operations

  • set - Update axis properties on an existing chart axis
  • get - Read back axis attributes

There is no add or remove: axes are created and destroyed implicitly by chart-type changes.

set

Address the axis by role, then pass one or more --prop writes.

Property Required/Default Description
title Axis title text. Applies to all roles (category, value). Pass none to remove.
visible Show or hide the axis (bool). Applies to all roles.
format Number format string for the axis (e.g. #,##0).
labelRotation Tick label rotation in degrees.
majorGridlines Show or hide major gridlines (bool). Applies to all roles.
minorGridlines Show or hide minor gridlines (bool). Applies to all roles.
min Minimum scale of the value axis. Only valid for role=value or role=value2; ignored on category axes.
max Maximum scale of the value axis. Only valid for role=value or role=value2; ignored on category axes.
majorUnit Major tick interval on the value axis. Applies to role=value|value2.
minorUnit Minor tick interval on the value axis. Applies to role=value|value2.
logBase Logarithmic base for the value axis scale. Only valid for role=value or role=value2; ignored on category axes.
dispUnits Display units for value axis labels. Applies to role=value|value2. One of: hundreds, thousands, tenThousands, hundredThousands, millions, tenMillions, hundredMillions, billions, trillions.

get Attributes

get returns the writable keys above plus these read-only attributes:

Attribute Type Description
role string Axis role token (lowercase) — identifies which axis this node represents.
axisFont string Axis text font name.
axisMin number Value-axis minimum (also surfaced via min).
axisMax number Value-axis maximum (also surfaced via max).
axisNumFmt string Axis number format code.
axisOrientation string Axis scaling orientation (e.g. maxMin when reversed).
axisTitle string Value-axis title (chart-level convenience; axis-by-role uses title).
labelOffset number Category axis label offset (% of default 100).
tickLabelSkip number Category axis label skip interval (>1 means tick labels are sparser).

Examples

# Set the value-axis title and scale on chart 1
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value]" \
  --prop title="Revenue" \
  --prop min=0 --prop max=1000

# Major/minor tick intervals on the value axis
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value]" \
  --prop majorUnit=20 --prop minorUnit=5

# Display units and number format on the value axis
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value]" \
  --prop dispUnits=thousands --prop format="#,##0"

# Logarithmic value-axis scale
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value]" --prop logBase=10

# Category axis: title plus rotated tick labels
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=category]" \
  --prop title="Quarter" --prop labelRotation=-45

# Toggle gridlines on the value axis
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value]" \
  --prop majorGridlines=true --prop minorGridlines=false

# Hide the secondary value axis
officecli set data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value2]" --prop visible=false

# Read back axis attributes
officecli get data.xlsx "/Sheet1/chart[1]/axis[@role=value]"

Notes

  • Axes are created and destroyed implicitly by chart-type changes — there is no direct add or remove.
  • Extended charts (funnel, treemap, sunburst, boxWhisker, histogram) reject axis paths; use chart-level set instead.
  • At chart-creation time, configure axes via the chart's own axis* props (axisMin, axisMax, axisTitle, axisFont, …). chart-axis covers post-creation only.
  • min/max/majorUnit/minorUnit/logBase/dispUnits apply only to value axes (role=value or role=value2) and are ignored on category axes.
  • lineWidth/lineDash set on an axis path apply to all plot-area series — use Chart series styling for series-specific line styling.

See Also


Based on OfficeCLI v1.0.119

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